ORWIGSBURG — In past seasons, Blue Mountain senior Lucas Pritiskutch felt he had let his team down defensively.
On Friday night, Pritiskutch found redemption.
With Shamokin Area threatening to tie the game late in the third quarter, Pritiskutch sat back in Cover 2 and read the eyes of Indians quarterback Logan Steele.
As Steele fired toward a receiver crossing the middle of the end zone, Pritiskutch broke on the ball.
Picked.
A goal-line interception would have been plenty for an Eagles defense that spent Friday night repeatedly escaping unscathed in its own territory.
Pritiskutch, however, was far from finished.
After getting out of the end zone, he veered toward the Blue Mountain sideline, with only one obstacle remaining between him and 80 yards of open field: Steele.
It was a moment Pritiskutch had waited for throughout his varsity career.
“Honestly, I just see Steele hawking me down, and I’m like, I weigh 160 pounds, I’m also not the fastest guy, I gotta put a stiff on him,” Pritiskutch said. “I’ve been good at them throughout like my entire football career, might as well show it here.”
As Steele closed in to make the tackle, the Eagles’ 6-foot, 165-pound senior planted a punishing stiff-arm, throwing Steele to the ground.
From there, it was a sprint to the end zone and a sprint to history.
“Seasons past, I honestly let some guys down, so in that moment, I’m trying to work for them,” Pritiskutch said. “This is all for them right there.”
Once he crossed the goal line, the adrenaline gave way to pure exhaustion.
“I almost passed out,” Pritiskutch said with a laugh. “Through my mind, I’m thinking, I’ve never ran that far in my life—or ran that hard in my life either.”
The 101-yard touchdown put the Eagles ahead 27-14, serving as the decisive play in a 34-14 statement win for the Eagles over the state’s No. 1 Class 4A program, while also breaking the Indians’ 28-game regular-season win streak.
While the Pritiskutch pick-six was the moment of the game, the Eagles’ statement victory was a full four-quarter performance.
Offensively, the Eagles tallied nearly 400 yards of total offense, including Cohen Kirby completing 8 of 13 passing attempts for 179 yards and a touchdown, with three of those completions going to Chase Guers for 76 yards and a touchdown. Running back Brody Foose ran for 120 yards and a touchdown on 19 carries.
Defense is where Blue Mountain shined. To go along with Pritiskutch’s pick-six, the Eagles’ defense forced four turnovers, four turnovers on downs, and allowed Shamokin to score on just one of seven trips that the Indians took snaps in Eagles’ territory.
Shamokin’s 14 points scored in the game were their fewest in 22 games, dating back to a 27-7 loss to Juniata in 2024, and their fewest in a regular-season game since 2023.
“We talked all week about having to get stops,” Blue Mountain coach Chuck Kutz said. “They’re a team that puts up big numbers, so our magic number was five stops and two turnovers. I think we pretty darn near did that. Our backs were against the wall a couple of times, but we won the battle up front.”
Knowing the magnitude of Friday’s game and the energy and confidence level his team brought all week, Kutz had the Eagles also break out their specialty uniforms for the showdown.
“We broke out the once-a-year jersey here,” Kutz said. “That was something we added for a special game, and we felt this was a special game—we eyed it up all year. The kids just had the confidence to go toe-to-toe with the team ranked number one, and we wanted to prove that we’re right up there with them.”
Another major piece of Blue Mountain’s upset effort was a fast start.
After forcing a Shamokin turnover on downs on the Eagles’ side of the field on the Indians’ first drive of the game, the Eagles coasted down the field in eight plays with explosive gains from Sonny Amato and Brody Foose before Cohen Kirby found Chase Guers for a 4-yard touchdown.
Shamokin’s second drive was déjà vu for the Indians. They drove into Blue Mountain territory but once again came up empty-handed, turning the ball over on downs at the Eagles’ 26-yard line.
The Eagles converted on the defensive stop once again, needing eight plays to march down the field before Kirby punched it in from a yard out. Within the first 15 minutes of the game, Blue Mountain already found itself ahead 14-0.
“Coach Kutz always preaches to the defense, get the ball back in the offense’s hands,” Kirby noted about the Eagles’ defensive effort on Friday night. “The defense did that today. They stepped up. And I feel like that was the reason, definitely the reason why we won the game. They played their tails off.”
While Blue Mountain did a strong job throughout the evening of keeping Shamokin off the scoreboard, they also found out firsthand how talented Wake Forest commit Logan Steele is.
The future Demon Deacon had 16 carries for 177 yards in the game, including a 56-yard touchdown in the second quarter to immediately follow Blue Mountain’s second score of the day, cutting the Shamokin deficit to 14-6 following a blocked extra point.
It took Blue Mountain just three plays to answer Steele’s touchdown, all three handoffs to Brody Foose. After Kole Luckenbill supplied the Eagles with strong field position on a 45-yard kickoff return to the Eagles’ 48-yard line, Foose picked up eight yards on the first play of the drive to move the ball into Shamokin territory before ripping off a run of 34 yards to put the Eagles down at the Indians’ 10-yard line. He needed just one more carry to find the end zone, scoring on a 10-yard run and extending the lead back to two scores at 21-6.
“They’re the number one team in the whole state,” Foose said. “We had to make a statement, especially on our home turf. We’re 7-1—we had one loss against Southern Lehigh earlier in the season in Week 2, and this was the biggest game we’ve faced so far. It gets us ready for the playoffs. We just did our job and pursued every play. Every practice felt like a game. We were on everyone’s butt, just making sure we worked as hard as we could, making no mistakes and executing everything.”
Facing a defense that never allowed more than 14 points throughout the first eight weeks of the season, the Eagles soared by that mark within their first three drives.
The Eagles had further opportunities in the second quarter to tack onto the lead, but two turnovers slowed down their offensive momentum.
The Indians took advantage of the lost momentum, including after a Brody Foose fumble at the Eagles’ own 23-yard line, as Steele connected with Ryan Bickert for a 9-yard touchdown. The Indians converted a two-point conversion after the score as well, making it a 21-14 game heading into the final moments of the half.
Just prior to halftime, the Eagles looked to add a late score and attempted a hook-and-lateral near midfield that resulted in a Shamokin fumble recovery, giving the Indians a chance to tie the game befoer half.
On the final play of the half, Steele dropped back and unleashed a deep pass intended for receiver Colin Steinhart. Kole Luckenbill initially appeared to go up and nab the ball for an interception, but while coming down to the ground, Steinhart seemingly ripped the ball away from Luckenbill before making a dash for the end zone, only to be brought down just short as the clock expired.
While Blue Mountain’s offense was the story of the first half, the defense flipped the script in the second half.
With the Eagles’ offense stuck in neutral for most of the third quarter, the Eagles’ defense was asked time and time again to defend Shamokin in short-field situations.
After Blue Mountain’s offense stalled out on its first drive of the second half, Shamokin drove deep into Eagles territory and appeared ready to tie the game, but running back Trey Taylor fumbled at the 3-yard line, resulting in a Blue Mountain recovery.
Then the Eagles forced a turnover on downs on their own side of the field on Shamokin’s next drive. On Shamokin’s third straight series in Blue Mountain territory, it appeared the Eagles’ defense was finally going to break.
With Blue Mountain’s offense sputtering, the Eagles were desperate for a turnover.
Enter Lucas Pritiskutch.
Picked. Stiff-arm. Touchdown.
“We have a dog mentality,” Pritiskutch said. “These guys have put in the work, we’re a physical group of guys. During Southern Lehigh, that wasn’t us—letting up 45 points, that’s not who we are. We learn from these mistakes and we just try to work as best we can for them.”
From there, it was all Blue Mountain. Shamokin’s offense, without Steele after he was banged up on Pritiskutch’s stiff-arm, was unable to find traction the remainder of the game, while Sonny Amato scored in the fourth quarter to put the exclamation point on Blue Mountain’s signature win.
“This was our chance to prove everyone wrong,” Kirby said. “We weren’t getting any love, but I get that. This was our chance, and we took full advantage of it.”